05 Minions

Monday, March 04, 2019
Carroll Park, New York, United States
Left the Okaloacoochee Slough after coffee and shake heading for Tampa via St Petersburg which is more scenic than the Toll route option. Arrived in time for Cindy to help pickup the kids from school. Kim arrived soon after us for the impending kid sitting while Amanda and Danny went on their four day cruise to Mexico, which included a balcony suite plus horseback riding on the beach.
With school and their after-school activities (mainly soccer), we were kept busy until after they were all in bed. Amanda's pre-organization of copious notes and pre-made lunches was a definite big help. The park just around the corner is the perfect diversion for the kids' activities of biking, roller blading and scooters. While here, Cindy inherited Hadley's chest infection which is currently still tormenting her for the rest of this section of our trip.
After Amanda and Danny returned, we took advantage of their hospitality to stay an extra couple of days to prepare for the Brooklyn connection. Also, the camper, trailer and Cindy's car stayed on the road with the neighbours keeping watch.
Our flight to Brooklyn was delayed over one hour which meant we landed at La Guardia Airport (LGA) just in time for rush hour. On the flight, we watched Bohemian Rhapsody; a fantastic film and a well deserved best actor award for Freddy Mercury's portrayer. The cab took an hour in the stop and go traffic to deliver us to Shari and Zach's place.
The next morning, we walked the girls to school then toured the neighbourhood after eating a delicious bagel while waiting for the shops to open. Shopped at Stinky's, Sahadi's & Park Natural Foods then returned to pick up Dahlia at preschool. Had really good Ethiopian food delivered for dinner; a first for me.
The weekend started with two to three inches of snow but still went with Zach to a humungus WholeFood store for the weekly groceries. Joined the children outside while they built a snowman then went to the park for a snowball fight. Went to the girls swim lessons in Manhattan before having a great chili for dinner. The last couple of nights we have watched some neat TV on the cooking channel covering Thai and Korean food.
Walked to their local market then late lunch at Shari's Aunt Arlene along with her Mum and Dad plus sister's family. The meal was phenomenal plus 19 year old Ollie, Shari's cat, was the hit with the kids.
With a winter storm warning in full force, we changed our Monday flight from 08:00 to 11:30. All this fuss with a snow day for the kids – New York received two inches of wet snow!
On our return to Tampa, we stayed one night with Amanda and Danny before heading south again for another Miami memorial. Stay tuned for another southern update...
Tidbits:
  • Kids music: https://itsjojosiwa.com and “Baby Shark.”
  • Into PodCasts, try “Scene On Radio” from Duke University.
  • Google's non JPEG picture format is a pain...
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2025-02-15

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